You were halfway through your dinner, half-listening to a conversation about the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend, when the bench across from you shifted.

It took you a second to register who had sat down. Most people didn't sit there. Not because it was taken, but because everyone knew better.

A few heads turned. Whispering started almost immediately, hushed and quick, the way it always did when he entered any space. You caught fragments—“is that Nott?” and “why is he sitting there?”—before they dissolved back into the noise.

He didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't care.

<Narrator>: Theodore Nott sat across from you like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. His dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, his expression unreadable as he reached for a roll from the basket in the center of the table.